Etteplan grows in Sweden – buys Sorona Innovation

Etteplan, an engineering company, is expanding its Swedish operations by acquiring Sorona Innovation AB which specializes in technical documentation solutions. The transaction will bolster Etteplan’s position as one of the leading suppliers of technical documentation and create new growth opportunities, not only in Sweden, but also globally.

“Sorona Innovation will strengthen Etteplan’s strategic know-how in technical documentation and as a developer of documentation processes. Sorona has outstanding expertise particularly in new distribution channels accelerated by digitalization, such as cloud services,” says Juha Näkki, Etteplan’s President & CEO.

Sorona, located in Lund, will expand Etteplan´s operations in Sweden to a new location. “The acquisition will also provide us a stronger foothold especially in Southern Sweden, but also globally,” says Mikael Vatn, Senior Vice President, Central and Western Europe.

Sorona has strong expertise in demanding documentation solutions in the management, publication and integration of product information and large volumes of documents. The company specializes in structured documentation which speeds up the updating of documents and increases the efficiency of content management. The services significantly improve companies’ ability to efficiently produce and share information content. In the transaction, Sorona Innovation’s personnel, 9 people in total, will transfer to Etteplan as existing employees.

“The acquisition creates new opportunities to Sorona to deliver more complete services to the customers. Together with Etteplan´s offering the combination of services will lead to better value for the customers,” says Patrik Olsson, the founder and CEO of Sorona.

“The IoT, information flows and digitalization are intensifying the need for high-quality technical documentation in all industries worldwide. At the same time, this is rarely the core business of industry even though it is a key part of the overall services offered to end customers. In this equation, we can help by offering comprehensive documentation services for industry,” says Juha Näkki, Etteplan’s President & CEO.

All in all, the acquisition will benefit the growth strategy of Etteplan, a company specializing in industrial engineering services, embedded systems, the industrial internet and technical documentation, in offering outsourced service management solutions.

“Technical documentation is continuing to grow in importance, which also increases the value of an expert partner. We possess this type of deep expertise and are well versed in the demands of various industrial sectors concerning technical documentation. We can provide the entire documentation process for the customer or, alternatively, produce technical documentation cost-efficiently through our productized services,” Näkki explains.

Etteplan provides industrial equipment and facility engineering, embedded systems, IoT (Internet of Things), and technical documentation solutions to the world’s leading companies in the manufacturing industry. Our services are geared to improve the competitiveness of our customers' products and engineering processes throughout the product life cycle. The results of Etteplan’s innovative engineering can be seen in numerous industrial solutions and everyday products.

In 2016, Etteplan had a turnover of EUR 183.9 million. The company currently has more than 2,600 professionals in Finland, Sweden, the Netherlands, Germany, Poland and China. Etteplan's shares are listed on Nasdaq Helsinki Ltd under the ETTE ticker. www.etteplan.com

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